


Honey Covered Butter Toast

by JustAnotherFlightlessBird



Series: Of Bees and Butter [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Gay Relationship, Child Neglect, Fluff, If You Squint - Freeform, Kevin and Ray being dads, Kid Fic, Light Angst, M/M, No Smut, but don't hate on Karen, no beta because i like to torture myself, please read I seek attention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23954809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherFlightlessBird/pseuds/JustAnotherFlightlessBird
Summary: Jake's been left home alone whilst his mother is at work, and he's hungry. The cupboards don't offer much, nor does the fridge, but thankfully his neighbour Officer Raymond Holt makes pretty good toast.
Relationships: Gina Linetti & Jake Peralta, Jake Peralta & Karen Peralta, Kevin Cozner/Ray Holt, Ray Holt & Jake Peralta
Series: Of Bees and Butter [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733965
Comments: 29
Kudos: 369





	Honey Covered Butter Toast

Jake is shuffling around the kitchen trying to find something to eat whilst his mother is out. He's too short to reach the cupboards by himself, so he drags one of the chairs in the living room over so he can stand on it.

 _Nothing,_ he huffs when he opens it. There's an almost empty bag of lentils and a _completely_ empty box of cup-a-soup. Jake's never liked lentils, and even if he did he doesn't know how to cook them, so steps down off the chair and thinks some more. 

He already checked the fridge, but he opens it again hoping he'll find something new there. No such luck. 

_Mom, where are you?_ he moans. Karen had gone off to work last night, and hadn't come back even though it was almost 3pm. Luckily, it's a Saturday, so he didn't need to go to school.

Jake briefly thought about trying to cook something from the small list of things he'd found in the cupboards, but he knew he'd make a mess and didn't want his mom to start crying when she got home. It didn't take much to set her off these days, and Jake really wasn't the best 11 year old when it came to comforting a parent.

With a final, decisive stomp, Jake decided enough was enough and made his way over to his bedroom across the hall where his piggy bank was hidden tucked between his mattress and the wall.

He didn't have a bed frame since his mother had to sell it to make the rent a few months ago, but what was the point of bed frames anyway? The _mattress_ was the part you slept on. 

Shaking the piggy tentatively, Jake took one of his shirts that was lying on the floor and wrapped the money bank gently. 

_Here goes nothing,_ he thinks after placing it on the floor.

He brings his foot down on it forcefully and _crack_ comes the satisfying effect.

 _Nice,_ he thinks gleefully as he finds around four dollars inside, _that's gotta be enough for a hot dog_

Leaving the apartment, Jake finds Gina on her bike, cycling down the hallway between the apartment doors. 

"Gina!" he says, but the girl doesn't stop her sport

"Hey, Jake; look, I've mastered the art of cycling"

"I don't think you're allowed to do that indoors" he tells her, matter of fact, but still he looks on longingly, "Can I try?" 

"No can do, Jake" Gina returns, still riding up and down the narrow pathway, somehow managing to turn the bike 180 at either end "I'm in the middle of a training seminar"

"I'll give you four dollars" 

"Why didn't you just start with that?"

And that's how Jake finds himself borrowing Gina's bike to start pillaging it down the apartment hallway gleefully. He's like one of those cowboys he saw on TV sometimes, with their noble horses that carried them to distressed damsels.

"I've never felt so cool" He laughs, before riding straight into someone who was coming up the stairs.

 _Oof,_ they both said, and when Jake looks up from where he'd landed across someone's legs, his stomach drops.

"What, pray tell, am I doing... on the _floor_?" Asks Officer Raymond Holt, carefully.

He lived just next to Gina in front of Jake's building with his husband Kevin. They'd moved in not long ago, but already there were rumours going around the building's kids that they were robots that ate children, and even though Jake never believed in stories like that, he also knew that he would make a particularly delicious child what with all the take out and cake he ate. 

"Well..." Jake began, _pleasedon'teatmepleasedon'teatme,_ "I was walking down the hallway.. and someone seemed to have... thrown... a bike... at us?" At every extended part, Holt's gaze grew more piercing and Jake's voice more quiet.

"And _who,_ exactly, could've done _that?"_

Jake looked behind him and found that Gina had disappeared. He said nothing and turned back to stare up at Holt with growing horror. 

The officer stared back, before pulling himself up off the floor, along with a dog lead he'd apparently been holding. 

"Well, whoever it was, I'm sure they're sorry to have caused such a disruption" For the first time since this entire commotion, Jake looked behind Mr Holt and noticed a _dog_ happily sitting with his tongue out. 

"You have a _dog"_ he gasps excitedly, pushing himself up onto his knees to try and beckon it over. The corgi comes over dutiful, and allows himself to be coddled. 

"Yes" Holt says choppily, "This...is... Cheddar" 

It's at that point Jake's belly decides to start gurgling obnoxiously, and he grins sheepishly at the looks Officer Holt gives it. 

"You're hungry." He says, and Jake nods, but Holt doesn't continue. 

"Yeah, I was just going out to get a-" And that's when Jake remembers that he'd impulsively handed over his four dollars to Gina, just to ride her bike. The four dollars he was _just_ heading out to buy a hot dog with. 

The policeman must have noticed something in Jake's expression, because he says seriously, "As a police officer, I feel it important to do as much as I can to help any civilian I cross paths with" 

Jake tilts his head at him, confused, but Holt just holds his gaze steadily. Then, it dawns. 

"Oh!" he says, "W-well, would it be too much to ask, Miste- Officer Holt, for like, a piece of toast, or something?" Jake gives the man his most charming smile. He knows his mother wouldn't be very happy with him for asking, but he really was quite hungry.

"I can do toast" Holt says blandly, and then starts making his way down the hallway, presumably expecting Jake to follow behind. Hurriedly, said boy gets off his knees and pats the dust off his trousers. 

"Come on Cheddar" He says happily, racing ahead of Holt and knocking on the door he knew was the man's apartment. As expected, Holt's husband, Kevin opened the door, albeit with an understandably confused face. 

"Hi Kevin" Jake said chirpily

"Hello...Jake?" 

Jake had never seen the couples apartment before, only ever seen his mother exchange pleasantries with the two men from outside in the hallway, so he wrestled past excitedly, Cheddar just at his feet. 

Their apartment was really neat and clean, with matching furniture and everything. Along the walls were huge bookshelves filled with books, that smelled old and wooden. Hopping around towards the kitchen, Jake admired the sleek marble counters, and sat himself down in one of the dining table chairs, which _didn't_ toggle around from leg to leg when he wriggled. 

"What's the neighbour's child doing here, Raymond?" Kevin asks... curiously? To be honest, Jake found that they said everything with no emotion whatsoever, something which didn't help with the rumours that they were robots. 

Suddenly, Jake remembered how afraid he was of the two, and realised his mum would _kill him_ if she found out he'd gone into their _apartment._

"He rode into me on his bike in the hallway, and then proceeded to pet Cheddar; it became apparent that the child was hungry, so, I've brought him here to provide as such" Officer Holt replied matter of fact-ly. It seemed the man had nothing more to say, because he shuffled over into the kitchen with Jake, and proceeded to put two pieces of bread into the toaster.

"So, Jake" Kevin began from the doorway (they were both keeping a big distance between themselves and Jake, he noticed), "Why aren't you at home with your mother?"

"My mom's out at work" He returns easily before raising his head up in panic, because Holt is a _cop, "_ She doesn't usually leave me alone with no food! We just- she just did this time"

Kevin looks at him for a long time.

"She _would've_ made me toast herself, but she needs to work since money's tight, and also we have...no.... bread" Jake winces momentarily, and is thankful for the distraction when Hank puts down a plate with 2 singular pieces of toast on the counter. 

He bites into it and winces anew, " _Plain_ bread?" He asks in horror, before catching himself and laughing nervously, "Sorry, sorry"

Holt regards him for a moment before asking- slowly, as though the idea had never daunted him-"Do you want something on top?" 

Jake shrugs as though he doesn't care, even though, truthfully, he kind of does, "I mean, maybe, if _you_ want"

"What do you want?" He asks

"Do you have Nutella?"

"No"

"Marmalade?"

"No"

"Strawberry jam?" 

"No"

 _"Raspberry_ jam?" 

"No"

"What _do_ you have?"

Holt thinks for a moment.

"Unsalted butter"

Jake looks at the officer incredulously for a moment, before looking down at his toast. 

"Yeah, okay, sure"

Holt nods, satisfied, and takes Jake's plate back so he can start buttering the bread. 

Once he's done with that, he hands it back.

"So" Jake asks around a mouthful of buttered toast, "You're a police officer?"

"I am" Holt replies

"That's _really_ cool" The boy enthuses, "I've _always_ wanted to be a police officer! I mean, maybe not _always,_ but ever since watching Die Hard it's been my life long _dream!_ Amy in the apartment downstairs says she wants to be one too, but for _all_ the wrong reasons. I'm tryna get Terry to join our police crew too, but he's too busy eating yoghurt or whatever. Boyle says he's too afraid of bandits and clowns to be one, 'says he'd much rather be a _chef,_ but I think I'm close to convincing Rosa even if she's _always_ too busy practising ballet to play"

And with that Jake takes a long breath and looks up at Officer Holt expectantly. 

"I see" Is all he says, and Jake blushes a little, embarassed.

"Police are pretty cool" he finishes lamely, looking down and biting down on his toast.

"I- I'm err, trying to build up in ranks to become a Captain one day" The man offers tentatively, and Jake beams brilliantly.

"You could be _our_ Captain one day" 

Holt's gaze, even though his face was practically set in stone, seemed to soften, and he nodded.

"I could be" He says, warmly.

Jake smiles. 

"I'm going to go and call your mother" Holt says suddenly, "Tell her you're here, so she knows" and with that Officer Holt leaves Jake alone with Kevin. 

Kevin's just as stone faced and cold as Holt, but he isn't a police officer to make up for it, so Jake sits awkwardly silent, munching quietly on the toast he still hasn't finished. 

After a few quiet moments, Kevin walks over to open a cabinet just under the sink. Hidden behind the pipes, Kevin pulls out a small squirt-ey container of honey. 

Jake's eyes widen, as the man trudges over and puts it on the table in front of him.

"Don't tell Raymond" He says in a whisper, and Jake grins in delight and takes the container readily.

He just finished squirting a generous amount onto his now sweet toast, when Officer Holt came back from his call. Jake tucks the container of honey behind his chair before the man can see.

"I've just called your mother, Jake" He says as he enters, "She says you can stay here until she comes back, if you want" 

Jake is silent for a bit, and Kevin chimes in with, "Of course, you don't have to"

Looking at the two men warily, and glancing down at his buttered toast, now covered in honey, Jake grins, "I'd love to stay!" he says. 

Kevin almost smiles, and looks at Raymond sweetly.

"Perhaps we could ask Karen if we could babysit Jake for free, whenever she's busy with work"


End file.
